Where are these registrations coming from? They are likely to follow some fairly familiar patterns found in the abusive registration of domains from other gTLDs and ccTLDs - and possibly by the very same players.

This posting, unfortunately, is aggressively erroneous.  It implies that 30% of .guru names are “abusive”—which cannot be further from the truth.  The “study” only looked at 100 names (which have not been disclosed) and never looked at the usage of any of them.

The loose definition of “abusive” leads a reader to believe that a registrant other than a trademark holder can have only bad intent for the name’s use.  For example, a registrant could justifiably register a name, such as ebay.guru or xbox.guru for authorized sellers or users to use, without it being infringing or abusive.  Keep in mind that brandholders that aren’t the registrant generally choose not to be as they had first crack at registering or blocking their names. 

The definition of abuse in the domain industry context typically has to do with stability and security concerns—e.g., phishing, malware distribution, spamming, etc.  Careless use of the term, such as in this case, is misleading at best.  Abuse, according to ICANN’s own research, occurs in far lesser percentages in new gTLDs than it does in .COM and other legacy gTLDs. 

In the case of true trademark abuse, Donuts, and other registries as well, offer extensive sets of tools to address trademark infringement, all of which are not only available to intellectual property holders but have been widely embraced and put to use by rights holders.  MarkMonitor’s posting should clarify, unambiguously, that the methodology applied here gives an overbroad impression that new gTLDs are fertile ground for abuse, and that significant tools are in place to address not only trademark infringement, but true security and stability abuse.  This industry is growing tired of doomsday scenarios about new gTLDs and deserves facts to be put forward responsibly.  MarkMonitor, which has incentive to frighten brandholders and sell more defensive registrations, should know better than to than to make this misleading post.

To clarify, any top 100 web property names registered to third-parties in any of the top 5 TLDs were categorized as “Abusive”. Furthermore, this analysis is meant to describe the patterns of registration behavior, and is not in any way meant to call into question the practices of the registries. All of these top 5 registries adhered to the mandatory RPMs, and in the case of .Guru – the registry even went beyond the basic RPM requirements by offering blocking.

@Elisa: Where were you expecting to see abuse? Are you defining abuse as domains not “legitimately registered by brand owners”? What is an illegitimate registration by a brand owner?  How do you define abuse? If a name is registered to a “third-part[y]”, does it necessarily imply abuse?  And, more importantly, what is the solution? Nevertheless, I don’t like the use of property to refer to domain names, as the debate continues.

@Suresh: Good points!

Is MarkMonitor planning to release this study for public review? Without the data it is difficult to judge the claims.

Meanwhile, the Anti-Phishing Working Group published a comprehensive study, including comprehensive data, which says in part:  “As of this writing, the new gTLD program has not resulted in a bonanza of phishing.”

http://docs.apwg.org/reports/APWG_Global_Phishing_Report_1H_2014.pdf

Similar data from MarkMonitor would be welcomed for a more reasoned discussion.

1. @Alex - I had not expected .XYZ, .WANG or .GURU to have gained such popularity.
2. @Suresh - We surmised that domains registered consisting solely of a globally recognized brand registered by an unrelated third-party is likely abusive.
3. @Phil - The research we conducted was very straight-forward. However, I do not wish to expose or embarrass any brand owners, and for that reason, I am not releasing the raw data.
4. @Mason - I never claimed that these registrations were being used for Phishing scams. However this report http://www.worldtrademarkreview.com/Blog/detail.aspx?g=679f2763-dc11-4016-88ef-9391c0e6d50b has similar findings to those I found, and in fact found that in some instances, more than 50% of brands were registered to third-parties.

@Elisa: Not sure if “not expected .XYZ, .WANG or .GURU to have gained such popularity” is referring to the number of registrations or abuse? Moreover, I cannot speak for @Philip, but I am not sure that he was asking to release the “raw data”; I certainly wasn’t.  I have a feeling that you dug yourself into big hole

Let me address this to MarkMonitor rather than to you Elisa, so that there is nothing personal in this comment.
I don’t think anyone familiar with new gTLDs disputes that there is some “abuse” going on. But the real questions include what is the overall level of abuse, what types of behavior are included within the term “abuse”, and to what extent has this “abuse’ caused demonstrable harm to brand owners or consumers?
The only way to judge that is to share the data, not just publish unsubstantiated claims.

Let me give an example—back in February the Reed Smith law firm released a report on TM infringement at .bike, at http://www.reedsmith.com/Report-on-the-Initial-gTLD-Launch-Taking-a-Ride-with-BIKE-02-11-2014/ It showed that of twenty well known bicycle manufacturers only four had registered their own name at .bike; they listed the 20 brands and the registration status of each. Now that is useful information. And maybe those manufacturers who didn’t register their company name at .bike should be a bit embarrassed.

But let’s say that someone other than Google registered google.bike. Now that may be ‘abuse”, as well as being idiotic because the domain can be readily shut down by a URS or transferred via a UDRP if a C&D;letter doesn’t do the trick. But is it meaningful abuse? What are the odds of anyone typing in google.bike? While Google has bikes at its HQ, it does not manufacture bikes whether human or autonomous.

Just a charge of registration abuse is insufficient to judge whether the abuse is meaningful in any way. What if the website is dark? What if there is some questionable content but no meaningful traffic? None of that excuses the original abuse but it does put it in a useful context.

As for not publishing the data out of concern that brand owners might be embarrassed, I don’t find that convincing. Now if Google doesn’t register Google.search that would be embarrassing. But why should Google register at .bike, or be embarrassed that they haven’t?

So I would urge MM to provide the data so that others can judge the extent and severity of the claimed abuse. This is especially important in the policy area—ICANN will be reviewing the RPMs for new gTLDs starting in 2015, and is also starting to discuss the second round and what if any changes should be made in the Applicant Guidebook for it. Those engaged in that debate will be expecting that those who advocate RPM or program changes (and I am not assuming that MM will seek any, just noting the possibility) based on claims of “abuse” will provide documented substantiation of those claims. Allegations absent evidence are not going to get very far.

Without clear data this post seems to be a case of fluffy scare-mongering PR.

The APWG’s latest report is much more plausible and worth looking at.

e.g., for .COM, .NET, .DE, .CO, .TV?

It appears the basic premise of the research report is to equate the “top 100 most highly-trafficked Web property names” as “globally recognized brands”.  That’s one big leap.  Is the 101st most highly-trafficked Web property name a globally recognized brand? 

Of course, using a “famous” trademark list would be most ideal to label as a “globally recognized brand” to premise such a research study.  Except for the little detail the IP community itself can’t agree upon such a list.

But’s that’s ok.  Let’s talk about “famous” trademarks and “abuse” any way so that we can just ignore the whole “infringement” burden.  Under these ground rules sure enough the research indicates the mere registration of “apple” by anyone other than the operator of this “top 100 most highly-trafficked Web property name” is, in and of itself, a registration abuse.  Sidebar:  raise your hand if you think the registrant of apple.org is a domain name registration abuser.

There are going to be some that read the research conclusions and say “look what Markmonitor said”.  Then there will be others that say “yeah, look what Markmonitor said”.

This is all ok because we all believe in free speech.

@Ray: Does believing in free speech allow me to yell Fire in a movie theater?

At least on my personal spamtrap (I only speak for myself on circleid) I’m seeing huge numbers of actually abusive (as in spam / phish etc) domains registered in the new .link TLD.

This doesn’t appear to be parked domains of any sort, just saying. 

Uniregistry and any registrars that register .link domains are requested to watch out for and damp down this actually abusive behavior.